Is this name right for the brief?

Three reviewers, 72 candidate names, one question. You will work alone: your ratings stay in this browser and are never shown to the other reviewers. The consensus step happens offline, after all three exports are in. Expect 45 to 60 minutes; multiple sittings are fine, your work saves as you go.

Who is reviewing?

Read the Brief and the Protocol first, then scan the field and rate family by family. Do not discuss candidates with the other reviewers until all three exports are in.

The brief

What we are naming, and for whom.

Read this once, fully, before opening the candidate list. Every rating you give should trace back to something on this page.

Card 1

What is being named

A venture doing small-ticket drywall and paint repair in occupied homes, sold to trade partners as reputational insurance. The trade partner is the customer; the homeowner is the worksite.

The working name today is Patch Me Up. This review evaluates that name as one candidate among many, on equal footing. If it wins, we keep it with confidence. If a challenger wins, we plan a careful transition. Either outcome is a good outcome; the goal is a name chosen on evidence rather than momentum.

Card 2

The audience that matters most

The primary audience is the referring trade partner: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, property management, and warranty companies whose technicians break walls.

When a plumbing company owner tells their customer “we will send someone to fix that wall,” the next words are our name. The name has to make that sentence easy to say and safe to say. The homeowner is the secondary audience: they see the truck, the tech, and the invoice, and they talk to neighbors.

Card 3

The register we are aiming for

Established, occupied-home professional, premium-credible. The name a trade partner is proud to say to their customer.

Market intelligence from an experienced operator in this exact trade points the same direction: the premium end of this business runs on competence-persona names, while the patch-pun names cluster at the discount and franchise tier, where job averages run roughly 30 percent lower. Tones to avoid: jokey, first-person-cute, handyman-generic, anything that could embarrass a referring partner in front of their customer.

Card 4

Where the name has to travel

Phoenix metro first. Then, on success, Tucson, possibly Flagstaff, and eventually San Diego metro.

The name needs runway across Southwest metros, not national reach. Phoenix and San Diego both argue for a name that reads cleanly to Spanish-speaking homeowners and crews. A name that leans on a single Phoenix landmark or a single region may not travel; that is not automatically disqualifying, but it is a documented tradeoff.

Card 5

The domain posture

We are flexible on domains. A .com exact match is preferable, not required.

A strong name whose exact .com is taken can still win: modified domains, get- or hire- prefixes, and regional variants are all acceptable workarounds if findability holds. Do not kill a name in your head because you suspect the domain is taken. Availability gets screened properly after the shortlist forms.

Card 6

What happens after this review

Your independent ratings are combined into a consensus shortlist. Shortlisted names then get tested for usability, meaning, domain and trademark viability, and growth runway.

Nothing is decided by this review alone. Legal screening is done by qualified professionals, not by us. The final adoption decision comes later, with full evidence in front of it.

The protocol

How this review works.

Three reviewers, working alone, then a consensus sort. The rules below protect the quality of the result.

Rule 1

Review alone

Do not discuss candidates with the other reviewers until everyone has submitted. Independent reads come first; the group conversation comes after.

Group discussion before independent review lets the most confident voice in the room set everyone’s anchor. The whole value of three reviewers is three uncorrelated reads. Your ratings stay on your own device until you export and send them; nobody sees your entries through this site.

Rule 2

The question is fit, not affection

For every name, the question is: is this name right for the brief? It is never: do I like it?

You will like names that are wrong for this business and feel lukewarm about names that are right for it. Rate against the brief page: the trade-partner audience, the premium register, the Southwest runway. If you find yourself writing “I just like it” or “I just don’t,” go back to the brief and find the actual reason.

Rule 3

The verdicts

Each name gets one of three verdicts: Right for the brief. Could be right. Not right for the brief.

“Right for the brief” should be rare; spend it on names you would defend in the consensus conversation. “Could be right” is a real verdict, not a dodge: use it when a name has a strength worth discussing and a weakness worth testing. “Not right” needs a reason, even a short one.

Rule 4

Rationale is required for names you advance

Any name you mark “Right for the brief” or “Could be right” needs at least one sentence of rationale tied to the brief.

The consensus sort works on overlapping rationale, not just overlapping votes. “Sounds like a company a plumber would trust” is useful. “Love it” is not. For “Not right” verdicts a reason is welcome but a short tag is enough: wrong tone, too regional, too cute, confusing, weak.

Rule 5

Do not screen domains or trademarks yourself

Rate the name, not its availability. Domain and trademark screening happens after the shortlist, with proper tools and proper counsel.

If you happen to know of a conflict, note it in the rationale box and keep rating on the merits. A name killed early on a rumor of unavailability is the most common way good names die.

Rule 6

When you finish

Use the export button to copy your completed review, then send it to Eric. Your entries are saved on your own device as you go, so you can review in more than one sitting.

The export is a plain text block: your name, the date, your verdict and rationale per candidate. Once all three reviews are in, the consensus sort is prepared and the group conversation is scheduled. Expect roughly 45 to 60 minutes to review the full field with care; two sittings is fine.

The field: 72 candidates.

Families are strategies, not rankings. Rate every name; the strongest fields usually surprise their makers.

Scan the whole field before you rate anything. The one-line strategy under each family is all the framing there is; the rest is your read against the brief. Click a family to start there, or begin at the top.